Adobe Names Anil Chakravarthy President & CEO. (Image: Adobe) Adobe has appointed India-born technology executive Anil Chakravarthy as its next president and chief executive officer, marking a major leadership transition at the software company as it intensifies its focus on artificial intelligence and agentic software. Chakravarthy, who currently heads Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations, will assume the CEO position on December 1. He will also join Adobe’s Board of Directors as part of the transition. Long-serving CEO Shantanu Narayen will step into the role of executive chair. He is expected to work closely with Chakravarthy during the handover while continuing to support Adobe’s broader transformation. Narayen, who has led Adobe through a period of major expansion and technological change, backed Chakravarthy’s appointment and highlighted his experience and understanding of the company. “Adobe’s opportunity ahead is limitless with our track record in creating new market categories and world-class products. Anil is an experienced transformational leader who leads with values, integrity and a deep knowledge of our business. He has a proven record of building and delivering category-defining products that serve our broad range of customers,” said Narayen. Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020 as executive vice-president and general manager of its Digital Experience business. Later that year, he took responsibility for worldwide field operations, working with enterprise customers across Adobe’s creativity and productivity portfolio. He became president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations in December 2021. The leadership change comes at a pivotal point for Adobe as the company seeks to expand the role of AI across creativity, productivity and customer experience. Its strategy increasingly includes agentic software, which is designed to carry out tasks and workflows with greater autonomy. “I’m energised by the opportunity to fuel growth and drive Adobe's leadership in the next era of agentic software for creativity, productivity and customer experience,” Chakravarthy said. During his tenure, Chakravarthy has overseen the expansion of Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business. The company credited him with helping develop products such as Adobe CX Enterprise, GenStudio and Brand Visibility, while also scaling Adobe Experience Platform and introducing CX Enterprise Coworker. He also played a role in Adobe’s acquisitions and subsequent integration of Workfront and Semrush. Adobe said Chakravarthy was chosen unanimously by its board after a selection exercise led by a special committee. Frank Calderoni, Adobe’s lead independent director who headed the committee, said the company had conducted an extensive evaluation before selecting Chakravarthy to lead the business. "The Board has unanimously determined that Anil is the right leader for Adobe’s next chapter of growth. Over the last six-and-a-half years, he has transformed and expanded Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations through innovation-led growth, developing and retaining talent and carrying forward Adobe's culture and values. We conducted a rigorous selection process resulting in the appointment of an outstanding CEO," it said. Before joining Adobe, Chakravarthy spent four years as chief executive of enterprise cloud data management company Informatica. He joined the company in 2013 as executive vice-president after holding senior positions at Symantec, VeriSign and McKinsey & Company.